


Foreigner

by Psychological_Top



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, But maybe that's just me, Creature of some sort, Creepy, Don't read if you are weird about scary stuff, F/F, Fleur is I don't even know, Hermione is Lost, Seriously it's creepy guys, Winter Solstice, kinda hot though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:47:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27924775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Psychological_Top/pseuds/Psychological_Top
Summary: "Hermione kept telling herself to calm down. She had gotten lost on research trips before in the middle of nowhere and this was no different."The biology student didn't know it, but it was actually very, very different. Something lurked beneath the darkness - she just couldn't see it.Yet.
Relationships: Fleur Delacour/Hermione Granger
Comments: 18
Kudos: 79





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a spooky two-shot (probably) for this shitty, barren winter to make you feel all types of ways. Grab a blanket, a cup of cocoa, and let's fucking go nerds.
> 
> Psych x

A branch snapped beneath the sole of her boot and she stopped, trying to balance on her back foot as she slowly retracted her foot. It was so quiet she could hear the slight shakiness in her breath. The swirling clouds of each exhale were starting to come faster despite her attempts to relax. She turned her head to the side, begging her useless vision to make sense of the darkness around her. She set her shoe down carefully on a different spot, sighing in relief when she heard no objection, and kept walking through the dense forest.

Hermione kept telling herself to calm down. She had gotten lost on research trips before in the middle of nowhere and this was no different. The darkness came quickly at this time of year and she tended to forget herself when she was logging her findings. She’d had a few nightly hikes back to base here and there. It came with the territory of her interests in some ways, and she just needed to keep a cool head and make her way back to the parking lot like usual. Easy. Simple. No need to panic.

The good news was she was somewhat prepared. A pack full of food, water, flint, a sleeping back, and a small tent was strapped tightly to her back and providing some semblance of comfort. If she had to, she’d be able to set up camp and get herself through the night until morning.

The bad news was she wasn’t _that_ prepared. The batteries on her flashlight were dead, she had no cell phone service, it was the longest night of the year, and the temperature had dipped just below freezing when factoring in the wind chill. The winter solstice provided a fascinating angle for her current project on nitrogen content in the soil across the U.K., but it also left her on a tight time constraint. The window of daylight was slim and this was her sixth and final location of the day. She hated to admit it, but she probably should have spread out the journey over two days. For some reason the morning's darkness felt starkly different.

She stopped walking and pressed the button on the side of her watch. The blueish glow lit up the background so she could read the digits. _Half-past eight_. It had been pitch-black for hours now. The slight sliver of white moon hung low in the sky but provided no help against the vast depth of trees surrounding her.

It was like an illusion sometimes. She would look out into the darkness, knowing what the trees _should_ look like. There were hundreds. Thousands, she knew, spanning for miles and miles from every side of her. The colour of their bark was a warm earthy brown, like a medium roast coffee lying out in the sun. Their plentiful arms stretched high into the clear skies like one does when they first roll out of bed to greet the morning. They were lofty and welcoming earlier in the day, and they received her with open branches and smiling bark craftily designed upon their trunks. 

Their kindness was over now, however. Their loftiness was looming; their welcomeness wicked and eery. Their warm bark was now the colour of a blackened bruise over a swollen eye. They were busy playing tricks on her with their shadows, shapeshifting right in front of her. Their knots were gnarled, like clawing hands reaching to drag her into the inky blackness with them. A swaying branch looked like a swaying branch, and then it was the swishing tail of a grumbling, magnificent beast. A rustle of leaves was a rustle of leaves until it was a threat hissing past her ears. They were telling her to go home. They were whispering at her, teasing and taunting her as she treaded blindly through their inhabited home. She was normally so careful.

 _So careful_. _So careful,_ they mocked. She shook her head, admonishing her overactive imagination and continued on.

The night was so dark it was humming all around her and ears strained to hear past what she knew wasn’t there. There was a small road somewhere around here, but it would be empty by this time of night. The lot her car was parked at would be unlit and undetectable, and there were no inhabitants for a long way as she was deep inside the boundaries of a national park. She had been contemplating stopping for over an hour now, but she knew the general direction she needed to go and that just felt like a waste of time. It wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle, so on she plunged further into the deep expanse of nothing. She just wanted to get a little closer to the edge of the woods while the night was fairly young.

Another twenty minutes or so of steady footfall and the light passing through the shadows was messing with her head. Her eyes had adjusted fractionally now, and she could see the shaded outline of certain shapes on the narrow footpath she was trying to follow. She selectively ignored more of the forest’s wiles as flashes of silver caught her eye. It was just the light passing through the trees, she remembered, as she kept her eyes down to where she was walking. Her heart was thudding steadily against her chest, as it had been since the sun sank hurriedly below the trees. Her breath spiralled in front of her as she continued down a slight embankment where the temperature dropped again. She rubbed her hands together to try to get some blood circulating.

It was illogical—that’s why she kept moving. This reaction she was having was illogical. It was just darkness for crying out loud. Sure, many large animals tended to hunt after sunset, but this was Great Britain and there was a genuine lack of large predators she had to worry about. The biggest mammal out here was a fox and they only grew to the size of a small dog on average. She knew nothing out here could physically harm her and realistically she could navigate back to the trailhead if she could just repress the unreasonable, paranoid part of her psyche.

There was another flicker in her periphery. It was just a small flash of light somewhere in the shadows, but her eyes didn’t stray from the path forward. _It’s just the moon. It’s just the moon cutting through the branches,_ she reminded herself _._ The back of her neck prickled. She stopped again to check the time. Just past nine now. A chilling breeze slipped under her thick coat and a shiver ran down her spine. She shuddered, crossing her arms over her chest to try and contain her body heat. Begrudgingly, she decided she’d need to stop soon. It would probably take her a while to get the tent constructed considering she could hardly see details father than a few feet in front of her.

Her nose was numb. Her fingers were starting to ache after hours exposed to the harsh temperature. She stuffed them back into her coat pockets and stopped again, squinting her eyes to try and find a patch of flat ground that would be large enough to settle upon. If only she had a working flashlight none of this would be a problem. She grumbled to herself as she stepped off the path towards what she thought was a spot that would work. Brambles crunched and snapped as she stepped through the overgrowth. The sounds of scurrying surrounded her as a few small animals took off before she could trudge through their dwellings. Another glint of moonlight flashed to her right, but she was too focused on not tripping over any snagging roots to look.

Hermione's blood ran cold when a loud screech pierced the still air. The high-pitched wail echoed through the vast forest. Her eyes were wide and alert, trying to see past the indistinct outline of dark shapes surrounding her. It was close, whatever made the sound, but she didn’t know how close. It was shrill, like a terrified scream or some wild animal’s shriek. She had never heard anything like it. It could be a creature caught in the clutches of razor teeth, but it could very well be something else. _Someone_ else. There was no way to tell. Her stomach flipped nervously and she swallowed thickly before letting out a slow, shaky breath she hadn’t realised she had been holding.

She waited for another sound. A rustle of a bird in the trees or the scampering of a mouse through the ivy. There was nothing, and she longed to hear the groaning forest again. She strained her ears to catch anything, but the silence was weighing heavily on her. It wasn’t natural silence. It was menacing, ominous. Suddenly the threats from the trees earlier seemed merited and deliberate, and she realised they weren’t threats: they were warnings. She should have stopped earlier. She should have left before sunset. She shouldn’t be here. She was a fearless fool.

Her eyes scanned the trees again, but there was such stillness and she couldn’t pick out anything unordinary. It would have felt serene if it wasn’t so frightening. It was another trick, the calmness. The peacefulness couldn’t be real, not after what she just heard. It was as though the woods were trying to make her forget about it, masking the mysterious violence with tranquillity. It was as if the wind had stopped altogether and time had frozen across the forest. She felt trapped. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t move. She just continued to wait for a sign that this wasn’t all in her head and she wasn’t going insane.

The darkness was one thing, but the unnatural blanket of quiet made her feel like something wasn’t quite right. Her bones were vibrating on some new frequency of fear like they knew something she didn’t. Another shiver ran down her spine, but she didn’t cross her arms this time. A voice in the back of her head told her not to move. A cold sweat was cooling on her forehead as though a fever just broke. The only sounds she could hear were her trembling, rapid breaths and the heartbeat pounding against her ribcage.

A full two minutes passed but it felt like two hours. She had to do something. The brunette couldn’t stay here forever. She was still in the middle of a small thicket of brambles, the patch of clearing twenty feet or so in front of her. She was so close. There was no way she’d be able to sleep tonight, but at least she’d feel safer if she wasn’t so exposed.

Another flicker of silver invaded her peripheral vision and this time she craned her neck to try to catch the shifting moonlight. She didn’t see anything, though. There was no light coming down from the leaves here, only shadows. She waited, watching. Another minute of quiet, shaky breaths as she scanned through the dark pillars of trees, her muscles trembling. She swore there had been a brightness but maybe it was her mind making things up again.

She took a deep breath and, despite her cautious conscious telling her not to, took a step forward. The snap of branches beneath her boot sounded off like a gunshot in the eery reticence. Another step, like a cracking whip. She moved faster. She just needed to set up her tent. It was probably nothing. Another step. Another. She winced as she crashed sightlessly through the unsettling woodland.

She finally made her way onto the small clearing. There were some rocks littering the space and vines that felt a little thorny, but it would have to do. She dropped to one knee and swung her bag off her back, frantically pulling it open with shaking fingers. Hot breaths were blowing out so fast she was worried she was starting to hyperventilate. She managed to pull two of the rods together and just found the first sleeve of the tent before she heard a loud snap in front of her. Her breath caught in her throat and she froze in place, dread forcing every hair stand on end. She drew her eyes up towards the source of the noise.

Everything was still. A thin layer of fog could be seen glowing far away in the distance, like an unobtainable Eden capturing the only light nearby. Thick black trunks spanned for what seemed like endless miles of darkness before her, but she couldn’t see what had made the sound. It was loud, like a large branch had snapped cleanly in two. Definitely louder than what a small animal should make. She quietly lowered the tent rod to the ground. Her numb fingertips dragged across the frosty soil until she found a jagged, shapeless rock. It was like holding an ice cube but she gripped it tightly and stood deliberately.

She clenched her jaw bravely despite feeling like her knees were going to give out. Chills erupted down her neck arms and she didn’t think it was because of the cold this time. For the first time this evening, she let her paranoid psyche take over her logical rationalisations. Something felt wrong. She couldn’t explain it, but she felt like she was being observed.

“Hello?” she called, her voice much smaller than she wanted it to be.

Her unseeing eyes searched desperately through the trees again. The rock in her hand was digging into her palm as her fist shook by her hip. There was a rustle to her left and she whipped her head to the side, eyes wide and panicked. Her shallow breaths weren’t quiet enough and she strained to hear over the blood pounding in her ears.

Another flash of silver to her right and a gust of wind blew past her. She jumped back with a yelp and cricked her neck trying to get a look at it. Her throat was dry. Something—whatever was here—was watching her, toying with her. She gripped the rock tighter as her eyes frantically tried to scan her surroundings.

“W-Who’s there?” she called out into the vast silence.

Nothing. No one. Not a whisper or a flutter of a leaf. She was alone, the forest a vacuum of senses again. The absence of sound pressed down on her shoulders as terror pooled like lead in her stomach.

She gripped the rock like a lifeline and continued searching until she landed upon the shadows behind an opening between two joined trees. It could have been a trick of the lack of light, but she thought there was perhaps some sort of shape that wasn’t exactly right; a dimension that shouldn’t be there. She squinted, unsure of what she was seeing, when the shadow moved.

A sudden clap of lightning and rolling thunder split the sky above and the darkness of the woods was filled with a heavenly white light for a fraction of a second. It wasn’t long—not nearly long enough—but it was enough to confirm what she was dreading. A few heavy drops of rain pelted the top of her head as she fearfully observed the gap between the two trees.

The gap that was completely black again now, but where she had just seen a pair of bright blue eyes looking directly at her.


	2. Chapter 2

Another flash of lightning lit up the forest floor. She could barely register that the eyes watching her were gone before she was plunged into darkness once again.

_Was that real? It looked so real._

She whipped her head around, trying to see; trying to make sense of anything. It was darker than before now, having been unfairly exposed to the bright light for a mere moment. 

The prickly feeling on the back of her neck was still there. She felt a weight on her; eyes and ears tracking her every move. Somehow, she knew that whatever was watching her—no, _whoever_ was watching her—knew exactly where she was despite the pitch blackness. The rain kept hitting her jacket, slapping audibly against the synthetic material. It was so unlike it hitting the soil, where the impact was soft and absorbing. Just another reminder that she was obvious: a target. This isn’t her home and she isn’t welcome. Someone was making sure of that.

She swallowed thickly as her thoughts raced in time to keep up with her frantic heart. Another roll of thunder of thunder sounded to her left, but the forest stayed drenched in darkness. Methods of survival bounced around her head. _Run. Scream. Fight. Run. Something._ She was a sitting duck and the heaviness of eyes on her was somehow getting more stifling, like it was getting closer. The frequency in her bones hit an all-time high and suddenly she was sprinting flat-out through the darkness. Dark shapes were flying past her as she dodged the trees, her breath coming in even, steady spurts. There was no more room for thoughts, just movements. _Move. Away. Away. Get away._

Rain shattered the still silence as thunder rolled above her once again. She had no idea how she wasn’t running into anything, but some dormant level of consciousness had taken over for her and she was operating on pure instinct now. Adrenaline filled every capillary as she pushed her legs to move faster than they ever had before.

Her new conscious was telling her she had no other option.

She tore over trails she couldn’t see with lungs that couldn’t fill. After what felt like miles of painstaking exertion, silver flashed to her right, and then on her left a moment later. Whatever she had been envisioning earlier was following her, circling her with ease, and her stomach rolled with a wave of nausea. She couldn’t slow down, however much the dread was trying to freeze her. She couldn’t stop _._ Adrenaline was forcing her to move blindly across the darkness.

 _I’m not going to die here,_ she promised herself.

She was in danger, and the only thing that could save her was her own precious skin sprinting through this forsaken forest. A swathe of blackness was before her and the outlines of the tall trees were only visible when they were a few feet away, but somehow her legs were still storming down an abandoned trail to nowhere. She had no idea which direction she was heading in. For all she knew she was sprinting deeper into the woods, but it didn’t matter. Another roll of thunder sounded above her, and it was so loud her ears were once again thrown into a momentary lapse of senses. She couldn’t hear anything besides her own ragged breathing. _Move. Move_. _Just move_.

Another flash of silver to her right. She forced herself not to look despite her confusion. How the hell was this—this _thing_ running rings around her? _Keep running. Don’t look around,_ a voice in her head urged. Her lungs ached with each painful pull as acid seeped into her muscles. She switched directions, pivoting nimbly to head away from the flashes of silver following her.

The trail began to narrow, and the forest wasn’t on her side. Her boots started to sink into the muddying earth, like a thick paste trying to latch her down. A branch came too quickly to see and sliced her cheek before she could duck. Roots snagged at her toes as she stumbled farther into the thicket. She was off the trail now and it was so unreasonably dark she knew she was going to trip any minute. She was soaked but couldn’t feel anything anymore. She just needed to get away from whatever had captured her in their sights.

Another crack of lightning lit up the sky once and she gasped as ice filled her veins. The reality before her was illuminated for just a moment, but once again it was enough. Her muscles seized and she dug her feet into the wet earth to slide to a stop, panting with heavy breaths and blinking frantically. Rain raced down her face and obscured her vision even more.

The darkness was filling every sense again. It was all so black. So, _fucking_ dark she wanted to scream to wake the emptiness; to laugh at the devised misery of it all. She could hear rain splattering against her stupid coat. Now that she wasn’t moving, she realised how the wind was howling through the trees, throwing itself around in a stormy rage. 

Her hair was whipping wet and angry across her face. Her thighs were shaking, but it was over. There was a pale figure twenty yards away, undiscernible but definitely a human figure standing in between the trees. There was no point running anymore, but it wasn’t over yet. She wouldn't go out without a fight. She panted, eyes wide and waiting as the figure made its way out of the inky black and the shape started to become more distinct.

The brunette exhaled a ragged breath, and the hazy white cloud wound in front of her in the freezing air for a moment. They kept coming closer between the trees as the exhale dissolved, and suddenly the outline was visible once more. She blinked again.

Hermione couldn’t tell if her heart was pounding because of the image or because she had sprinted half a mile through the pitch-black woods. Another breath reached out, coiling and distorted the illusion, but then it cleared. _This can’t be real_. She scrunched her eyes for a second and strained to see through the vapour.

Her limbs shook in confusion; freezing cold but overheated with exertion. She could taste the mineral in her open mouth as the rain raced down her cheeks and across her parted lips.

A woman was emerging from the depth of blackness, naked as the day she came, slowly—almost lazily—stalking towards her. It was dark and the shadows were confusing, but the closer she came the more certain Hermione was that this couldn’t be real. Her mind was playing one final trick on her because this _couldn’t_ be real.

The woman a goddess. Impossible. She was tall, and as pale as the moon that abandoned her earlier. Brown eyes slid down her naked body greedily, not caring about civility because _this couldn’t be fucking real_ so it didn’t even matter. Every inch of her proportions looked manufactured. Someone had crept into her ears, crawled to the back of her mind, and picked apart her deepest, darkest desires.

The woman had stopped walking now. She was standing five yards away. As far as Hermione could tell in the dark her pale bare feet were somehow untouched by the thick mud. The brunette was frozen. She couldn’t move if she wanted to. Something unearthly was tickling at the skirts of her skin and sticking her feet into the soil. Her heart was speeding nervously.

Another flash of light blew out across the forest floor, making her blink in reaction to the onslaught of light. The woman was closer now. Less than half the distance in that split second. Close enough to touch. Hermione’s eyes widened as she registered her details more clearly. Long, silvery-blonde hair was barely damp with the rain and somehow glowing in the darkness, like a beacon in a shipwreck. Her jawline was sharp and angled, her muscles smooth and toned. There were tracks of rain racing down her breasts and stomach. Proud shoulders bore no signs of discomfort despite the storm above them.

Time felt like it was slowing the closer she came. Her soaked skin prickled again. An alarm bell rang annoyingly in the back of her head but she snoozed it soon as her fingertips began to tingle. A warm feeling was spreading in her chest and she couldn’t help but let out a small sigh of relief as her body began to thaw after hours of shivering.

The woman’s eyes were on her, glowing. It was the strangest, most iridescent blue she had ever seen. So bright against the darkness that it couldn’t naturally be feasible. _This can’t be real._

Hermione exhaled a necessary breath, and the white cloud of air obscured her vision from the impossible image for a moment. When it cleared the beautiful woman was less than a foot away. She held her breath again. _This can’t be real. This can’t be real._ She scrunched her eyes closed and opened them.

The goddess was standing right in front of her, her flawless face only inches away. Hermione could see her unnaturally electric blue eyes sweeping over her features. She could hardly see anything besides her. It was as if she was the only thing she was supposed to be looking at.

Heat radiated from her naked body somehow, bringing light and warmth and peace in this desolate wasteland. The brunette had no idea how she moved so quickly and silently, but she knew whoever she was—whatever she was—she would probably be the last thing she ever saw. She was probably dangerous, but the warmth in her chest begged her not to leave.

The naked woman ticked her head to the side and eyes raked over her face. Hermione read it as curiosity, but her flawless face betraying no emotions so she couldn’t be sure. The strange feeling kept washing over. Her brain felt foggy and unresponsive the warmer she felt. It was ridiculous. Stupid, even, but the only thing she could think about was if the woman was cold and needed her jacket.

The pale face moved closer, and her rosy lips parted. The breath that coiled between them smelled like flowers and vanilla. A hand came up and Hermione felt a warm finger trace just below her lower lip. A loud gasp left her as heat jolted through her body at the touch.

The brunette couldn’t stop staring at her face. It was too beautiful to look away, and the small smile that was pulling at the naked woman’s mouth made her stomach flip. She felt the woman’s thumb and forefinger lightly pinch her chin. Her head was gently pushed to the right. Left. Right again. Her eyes never left that stunning blue. Another breath of vanilla and flowers filled the space between them and she dropped her warm hand. 

The stranger said something in a language she had never heard before. It was quiet, like a statement to herself, but Hermione thought it sounded musical. She wanted to close her eyes to better listen, but she was worried the woman wouldn’t be there if she opened them again.

“What?” Hermione asked. Her voice sounded distant, like she was trying to speak underwater.

Blue eyes dropped to her lips and back up. Sharp white teeth flashed in a blinding smile for a moment before pain seared through every cell and another scream filled the silent forest. A thud hit the ground by her feet. She had been holding onto the rock this whole time.


End file.
